Always at Home in the Past. Exploring Nostalgia in the Graphic Novel

My project deals with the aesthetics of nostalgia in a corpus of graphic novels. It starts by investigating the critical framework regarding nostalgia, which I analyze from a historical, psychological, philosophical and sociological perspective, giving particular attention to the implications it has for present times. It goes on to apply media-driven approaches about nostalgia to comic studies, trying to build a typology of the ways nostalgia may be seen as a two-phased, interactive articulation of comic production (of which I highlight motifs, style and structure) and reception (which I regrouped under the labels of readers, fans and collectors). Finally, I proceed to some close readings of key primary texts (graphic novels) to test my hypothesis in practice and draw my conclusions.